05.09.08
Posted in Business, Family, General at 10:43 am by Jim Dudley
Even though spring has already arrived for most people, spring has finally sprung here in NH! While friends of ours have been cutting their grass for over a month now, we just started. The flowers are finally starting to poke their heads up, and the buds are on the trees. Another couple weeks and things should be green again!
Things are going well at the business, except that it is really slow right now. So this is where the rubber meets the road. We’re praying that the sales revenue will start to come in soon, so we can pay the bills! The Lord has been so clear to us so far - so we are just trusting Him that everything will turn out fine. The “vacation/tourist” season doesn’t really start up here until Memorial Day, which is when we should start to get a lot busier. We’re planning a big event for that Saturday (May 24th) with live music, food, a boat swap, and free kayak demos & lessons. Hopefully it will bring a lot of people in! We’ll keep you posted.
Christel and the girls are down in PA for a week, visiting her parents. Which means I’m alone for the week, so I’ve been working long hours at the business trying to get a lot done. They picked a good time to go away - because the black flies are out now! I’m hoping to find time in the next few days to try and get out on the water and do some paddling. If the weather holds up, I’ll get out, and take some pictures to post later.
Here’s a couple shots of the inside of the store: (click to enlarge)
Permalink
04.21.08
Posted in Paddling, Business at 8:37 pm by Jim Dudley
This past weekend was our grand opening for Sunapee Outfitters, and it was a great success! God answered our prayers for great weather - we had very unusual weather for April in NH… upper 70’s and blue skies! We estimated about 100 people or more that stopped by the store on Saturday, and it was very encouraging to hear that many people are interested in getting into kayaking this year. We even sold 2 kayaks over the weekend. PTL! Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us and the business. There is still LOTS to do, so please continue to pray for me as I continue to put in lots of long hours of work. But it’s so exciting and I’m loving every minute of it.
Here’s our main sign out near the road:
Here’s one of the rooms in the store:
(click pictures to enlarge)
Permalink
03.29.08
Posted in Family at 8:31 am by Jim Dudley
Well, it’s a week away from April and we just got another 8″ dumped on us. Just when you think spring is around the corner in New England, you get more snow! Which I usually don’t mind, but with the kayak business getting started soon, we need all this white stuff to melt fast! Sure is pretty though. Here is a picture of our road.
Permalink
03.16.08
Posted in Family at 10:02 pm by Christel Dudley
Permalink
03.13.08
Posted in Business at 9:18 pm by Jim Dudley
For those of you that have noticed that we haven’t been keeping up to date very well on our blog, it’s because we’ve been working 150% of our time at the business! It sure is keeping us busy, as we expected, but things are going very well. We are still on track to open the store next month (yikes, only 4 weeks away!). The store is all renovated and ready to go, and now we’re starting to receive deliveries of all the products. So there is a lot of unwrapping, labeling, data-entry, and store display setup to do in the next few weeks! All of our hard work for the past 3 years is finally coming to fruition. It has been so amazing to see how God has led us through this amazing journey so far. With small & big answers to prayer along the way. We just keep trusting Him that He is in control and He will take care of us. Sure, it’s scary… and risky… and a lot of unknowns… and we have our fears and hopes… but knowing that God is in control, and trusting this business to Him — makes everything a lot easier. We continually give the business to Him on a day-to-day basis, and just pray that in whatever way possible it will glorify Him. If you would please pray with us that He would bless the business and that God would give us wisdom with all the decisions we need to make along the way.
I know everyone has probably been waiting for some good pictures of the new store, so here are some!! If you haven’t visited our website yet, you had better check it out! www.sunapeeoutfitters.com And make sure you sign up for our online newsletter!!!
Here is the outside of the store. It’s right on a major highway - great location for good traffic! It has a gravel parking lot, and a big deck on the right side. There is also a large room addition off the back which you can’t see from this photo. |
Here is a closeup of the front entrance. These first two pictures were taken late last summer (obviously from the lack of snow!) |
The main room of the store. This photo was just taken a week ago, so it has all the updates we have done. This is the checkout area, and the cafe area is in the back right of the photo. We have free wireless internet and we also serve hot beverages (coffee, tea, hot choco), and cold drinks in the summertime. |
Here is one of the side rooms. This room will have some kayaks on the rack (which we built from scratch), and lots of accessories and other products hanging on the wall all the way around the room. |
Permalink
03.02.08
Posted in Family at 9:04 pm by Christel Dudley
Emily likes to help Daddy with the sound board at church. |
Ann just daydreaming… :) |
Permalink
« Previous entries
